Low @ Koko sometime in November – em, they were crap.

I thought this was going to be an evening of rare beauty. Instead we got a ponderous, pretentious, over-blown set entirely lacking in subtlety or restraint. Each song seemed to reach about a dozen thrilling crescendos and the pace of various songs was slowed, presumably with a view to giving maximum ‘atmosphere’ – but the beautiful, bleak and haunting harmonies don’t need over-egging and we don’t need more time to appreciate them. All delicacy was lost, we were being asked to NOTICE THE BREATHTAKING HARMONIES rather than just listen to them. I thought they fancied themselves quite a lot. Also, they did some hideous kind of reggae-lite christmassy song – REGGAE-LITE FROM LOW. We mentioned Culture Club. They also did that ‘come they told me, pa rum pum pum pum’ christmas carol, whose name escapes me – this is one of my least favourite christmas carols and Low’s version seemed to go on for ever and ever. Then we had some ‘Santa gone bad’ song accompanied with chords of doom. This just about finished us off. And we were not alone. Suddenly a male, American voice shouted “This is a travesty! I’ve been coming to see Low for 11 years and this is not the band I know”. People booed the comment but I thought it was bang on the money. Allan from Low tried to laugh it off, but the atmosphere had gone sour and early christmassy feelings were not to be found, so myself and boyfriend took ourselves off home early. Sandinista sounded fantastic though.